


Fresh Pressed Apple Juice

by bazemayonnaise



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, レ・ミゼラブル 終わりなき旅路 | Les Misérables: Owarinaki Tabiji (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Fluff, Jean Valjean owns an apple farm, M/M, Middle Aged Virgins, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazemayonnaise/pseuds/bazemayonnaise
Summary: Ryousuke had spent a lot of time thinking about those apples, the thought of them rotting, festering away inside of him. Some people get apples, some people do not. That is how society works. To accept this thought is to accept that it is unjust. Those who do not see the injustice think: those who deserve apples receive apples-[Or, what if I wrote a nearly 15k fic about a show absolutely nobody has watched? Can be read w/o watching Owarinaki Tabiji]
Relationships: Baba Jun/Saitou Ryousuke, Javert/Jean Valjean
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Fresh Pressed Apple Juice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [steviekat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviekat/gifts).



> Owarinaki Tabiji is a Japanese Modern Era AU adaption of Les Mis. It's a police procedural about Saito Ryousuke [Javert] tracking down Tokuda Jun / Jun Baba [Madeleine / Jean Valjean] and his adopted daughter, Kosue [Cosette]. It's basically the exact plot of Les Mis, except instead of stealing a loaf of bread, Jun Baba kills Ryousuke's abusive dad. 
> 
> Please watch the show if you haven't, just because it really is puuureee quality. If you'd like a summary you can listen to our podcast episode about it, Bread & Barricades: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aik5iGRE9OlXbFYVIiNI5?si=Q917_ptLRyGvgPWvVCrNPw

Ryousuke focuses on the small side plate on the table in front of him. There’s an inch of pattern around the rim, small white rabbits bouncing in an eternal loop on a band of green decoration. Simple, delicate, and still more ornate than anything he owns. His apartment had come with the last tennant’s old plates and bowls; chipped white and navy china that was good enough to eat off, so he did. He assumes this plate is part of a set, perhaps all of them pastel colours, chosen by this man’s daughter to complete the ‘country house’ aesthetic of the home. 

On the plate are three large segments of an apple, cut and cored, the skin carefully peeled off. Each segment has its own toothpick in it. Ryousuke decidedly doesn’t touch the plate, keeping his hands in his lap as he sits Seiza-style in this person’s house. 

He’d heard the thud of a heavy knife chopping through apple from out here, wondering what it was that the man was doing in the kitchen. _Schiiick. Shiiihck._ Fresh apple being sliced, _thud_ as the knife met wooden chopping board. The apple had sounded crisp and juicy. 

Sometimes when Ryousuke had been in school, a kid would come in with a crate of fruit from a relative out in the sticks, a farmer with fresh produce to share. Each kid would get half an apple at lunch, cut and prepared by whichever student had lunch duty. Even at a young age, Ryousuke could appreciate the difference between an apple from a supermarket and fruit from some kid’s Uncle in Fukushima. 

Ryousuke had been surprised to discover in Middle School that he had a great-aunt in Aomori, who’d sent some of her produce. It was expensive to send a box, especially to people not in the immediate family, but she had wanted to holiday in Kobe and was sowing the seeds of familial kindness. There hadn’t been enough to take to school: half a huge apple was a decent bounty to a kid, but a quarter or less was taking the piss. 

Ryousuke had eaten his share of his great-aunt’s apples in a state of shame. It was just what you did, taking fruit to school when you had it, and when it was found out that he hadn’t shared his, he would seem selfish, he would be marked out as having a stingy family. His family’s business might even start to suffer once word moved from student to parent. 

Ryousuke carried this guilt inside him for years. His Middle School life was uneventful, mostly filled with studying and reading. He had a few friends, mostly other boys who also studied and read. They crammed for High School exams together, then didn’t keep contact once they’d either gotten into their top choices or not. He had considered telling them, once, late at night in a library. Wondered how they would react to not having had this bounty shared with them. 

The boy invigilating the mock exam they had set for themselves had looked over at Ryousuke with a harsh look. _Are you not taking this seriously? I will fail you!_ Mad with power. Ryousuke couldn’t remember that boy’s name, now, could barely remember his face. Had he had a fringe? Had it covered his eyebrows or had it stuck up? Was he short? Tall? Whatever he had looked like, there was absolutely no way that he’d have had an opinion on something as trivial as apples. 

It was trivial. His classmates were rational humans, capable of understanding that not everyone had a close relative with an apple farm. It wasn’t as if it were some right of passage, nor was it like a majority of the class had had the opportunity to become the bearer of fruit. Even those who weren’t rational - those who might have teased Ryousuke, vilified him in front of the class - they had better targets, weaker ones, ones who weren’t likely to fight back. 

Ryousuke had spent a lot of time thinking about those apples, the thought of them rotting, festering away inside of him. _Some people get apples, some people do not. That is how society works_ . To accept this thought is to accept that it is unjust. Those who do not see the injustice think: _those who deserve apples receive apples_ \- 

Ryousuke digs the heel of his palms against his eyes. _This wasn’t why he was here. Behave, be normal!_

“Are you okay?”

Ryousuke winces, slowly lowering his hands from his face. “Fine.”

“Would you like some painkillers? I have paracetamol or I could make you some herbal tea?”

“Had a late night.”

“Ah, is that so!” The man sits opposite from him across the small table, mimicking Ryousuke’s Seiza position. He looks as nervous and as unsure as Ryousuke is feeling as he removes a small pot of tea and two teacups from a tray. He pours carefully, like a man trained to entertain guests. Ryousuke finds himself wondering if that’s from this man’s life as a lawyer, or as teenage stints in being a part-timer. 

“I have to admit,” the man continues as he passes Ryousuke his tea, “I was rather nervous myself last night!” The man sits back, pauses, then re-adjusts himself so he’s not sitting so rigidly. He glances up at Ryousuke, giving him a wry smile. “You might think me very naive but this is my first time doing something like this.”

Every muscle in Ryousuke’s brain urges him not to let on that he too felt queasy with nerves the night before, the brain that has been a police brain for more than half of his life reminding him that to hold information is to hold power. But this - while technically it will be held in police territory - is not a police endeavour. 

Ryousuke lets some of the tension out of his shoulders. While he doesn’t break his posture, he shifts his legs so that they are crossed instead. "Why did Tokuda-san agree to this? You do not look like a man in need of cash, if you’ll excuse me saying so.”

Tokuda’s small smile is already gone and Ryousuke curses his ability to have offended this man within three minutes of meeting. 

“I will admit to you, it was not my idea.”

“Oh.” The thought that more than two people in the world knew about his predicament sparks dread in Ryousuke’s heart. 

“Oh, no! I don’t mean to say that I was forced into this, Saito-san!” Tokuda says quickly, obviously misinterpreting Ryousuke’s look. “And now that you’re here, I won’t back out of the agreement!”

“It was my junior officer who set up the account,” Ryousuke blurts. It’s information that that bastard Officer Tanaka had told him not to reveal because it made him look like ‘a real wet blanket’ but - “I told him I didn’t need to be set up like some teenager at a mixer but he’d already sent you the message.”

Tokuda bursts into a laugh. “It was my friend Ritsuko who set up my account!”

“Ritsuko - ah, the secretary-”

“So it was Ritsuko-san and Tanaka-kun who have been messaging! Perhaps it should be them going on this ‘date’!”

Ryousuke lets the horror of that wash out of him, allows the humour to settle in. “Perhaps they should.”

“These young people, meddling in old mens’ private lives!”

“Surely your secretary is as old as we-”

“Saito-san!” Tokuda is shooting him an overly shocked look, like a middle-aged wife hearing some piece of scandalous news. “No wonder you needed help romancing an internet stranger when you do not even obey the most basic rules of courtship!”

At Ryousuke’s blank look, Tokuda continues with a “Assuming a woman’s age, Saito-san. She’ll have your neck when she hears.”

“‘When’?”

“You’d be a fool to think I can hide even a moment of this interaction from her. She’s very persuasive, is Ritsuko-san.”

“Ah.”

Again, Tokuda seems to be translating Ryousuke’s monosyllabic reactions into conversation. “Rest assured, I do not have romantic intentions towards my secretary.”

“I had not meant to imply…” 

“Most people assume the same about our relationship. It’s rare in this world to see a man and a woman share a friendship without romantic influences.”

“If you’re sure.”

“By which you mean you think I am lying to myself?”

“I meant what I said. ‘If you’re sure’.”

It’s a stalemate and Ryousuke can feel it. This is not how first dates should look or sound, even if this is a fictitious one designed to cease and desist his colleagues from asking him ignorant questions about his love life. ‘Who, me?’ Ryousuke will be able to say, ‘I have had a life partner all this time, I cannot wear a ring because we cannot get married in this country.’

But not if they cannot even get through niceties without hitting a hurdle too high to clear. Ryousuke is aware that he is hard to get along with. He is a stodgy and single-minded man. He had assumed that with a lawyer, this would not be too much of a problem - except that this man is excruciatingly un-lawyer-like. He seems morally sound, interested in humanity and is a part-time apple farmer. 

“You have a rather high profile in this town, Tokuda-san. I have heard people praise both your pro bono court appearances and your fresh produce.”

Tokuda says “Thank you” like a man who tells himself that he could, nay, should be doing more. 

“Does Tokuda-san not have a reputation to uphold? These are not inconsequential people you will meet - they are people who may perhaps have an effect on your businesses.”

“Oh no, this was why I wanted to meet with you to discuss this first - I am in need of a similar service from you for my own event - it is why I allowed Ritsuko to play such games. So long as you are, shall we say, ‘outing’ yourself, I thought I might as well capitalise on the traction and use this relationship as my own preventative measure.” 

“‘Preventative measure’?”

Tokuda gives him a knowing look. “I’ve spent the last twenty years as a bachelor, and it has become exhausting. I do not plan to find a committed relationship and I am assuming you are the same. I was hoping we might be able to use this as a simulacrum of a ‘reciprocated relationship’, using one-another to act as a partner when the need arises. We could begin on a trial basis, but should we get along I believe it would be a beneficial long-term solution.” 

Ryousuke deems the look being given him says ‘oh, good, you haven’t immediately dismissed me as being either a creep or a complete loon’ and lets Tokuda continue. 

“We can set terms, and perhaps a minimum hour stipulation per month, based on our mutual public appearances. We could discuss our comfort levels for public displays of affection, of course adjustable every interaction and inclusive of safeguarding practises such as safe words. Or, if that’s all too much, please do not fret, I am still amenable to a ‘one night stand’ scenario.”

Ryousuke’s shoulders tense a little at that thought - he’s almost one hundred percent certain that setting up the man many speculated to be the town’s next Mayor as his ‘one night stand’ would not _reduce_ gossip about his relationship status. 

“I am amazed,” Ryousuke says instead. “It was easy to forget, Tokuda-san, that you are a lawyer.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment!”

“To talk of this situation as something that might necessitate terms and rules of conduct…”

“It’s a bit much?” for the first time, Tokuda looks down - like he’s lost that veneer of confidence that is usually so easy on him. 

“No, no, it’s…” Ryousuke searches the ceiling for a suitable word. “It’s reassuring, and frankly unexpected.”

“What exactly did you expect from asking a stranger on the internet to be your fake boyfriend?”

Ryousuke can’t stop himself from levelling Tokuda a ‘ _really_ ’, though he doesn’t stoop so low as to reply with a ‘ _what exactly were you expecting by answering it_ ’. “I _mean_ , I am glad that you have put some thought into this, and that your suggestions sound reasonable. I will have to spend some time thinking about what terms I would want to set, and would be grateful if we could build the contract together so that I may ask you questions about your use of language.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“It’s a maybe. Could we do several trials before working on a contract?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Tokuda relaxes even further, now lounging on the other end of the table like a man entertaining a guest rather than proposing a business deal. 

Ryousuke allows himself to loosen his own muscles by several degrees as he picks up his tea cup. It is not an ordinary green tea as he is expecting, but a slightly sweet, fragrant white tea. He cocks his head at the taste. It’s fruity, almost like… “Apples.”

Tokuda grins. “Yes, Ritsuko-san suggested it. We dry freeze apples that would not sell well based on their appearance, then infuse a white tea with the flavour. We intend to market it towards the more affluent houses of the town so that I may afford to give more pro bono support, and can hire more help on the farm. What do you think?” 

“I am not much help when it comes to knowing the tastes of the affluent, I am afraid.”

“But is the taste to your palette?”

Ryousuke hums, then takes another sip. “I do not tend to drink ‘seasonal’ or ‘flavoured’ products. I usually favour simple, resource-cheap products so I am not used to this kind of taste.” He takes another sip, savouring it on his tongue. “But I suppose it is a welcome change. It is not too sweet or too tart, and is a pleasant reminder of the fragrance of apples without overbearing the pure flavour of the subtleties of a white tea.”

When he looks up, Tokuda is looking at him with an unbridled glee that takes Ryousuke aback. 

“What?”

“That’s a very thoughtful response, Saito-san. If you found me unexpected, let me tell you the feeling is mutual.” Tokuda hums. “Have you had a silver needle tea before?”

“I cannot say I have. Not to my knowledge.”

“Ah! Well I know a Chinese tea house in the city that has some excellent tasting sessions. It might make a nice setting for a ‘second date’? Maybe we could schedule it for before your intended event.”

Ryousuke is only slightly alarmed that it doesn’t take much thought for him to say “Yes, that is agreeable to me.”

Tokuda stretches his arm across the table and Ryousuke shakes it. “Perfect. I’ll send you my schedule, do you use SMS or email?”

“Either is fine.” 

As they swap personal numbers, Ryousuke notes that Tokuda seems to have not just two but three mobile devices tucked into his pockets. “I understand the need for a private and a public phone, but why the third?”

“Oh, er-” Tokuda looks a bit embarrassed. “Well, I realised that some people wanted my private phone number rather than my business one…”

“But you didn’t want them to have your actual personal number.”

“Exactly. That probably seems quite duplicitous, huh.”

“It sounds like politics to me.”

“Again, I’ll take that as a compliment.” When Tokuda has checked that he’s selected the right phone from amongst his trio, he hands it over to Ryousuke. 

“Should I ask which you’ve given me, or will I be offended?”

“I think it would be perfectly reasonable for you to have all of my numbers - my office landline and house phone too,” Tokuda says without hesitation, “But this one is the direct line.”

“I’ll remind myself to be flattered the next time one of your clients is met with your voicemail.”

“I don’t let anyone reach my voicemail if I can avoid it- oh.” Tokuda comes to an overly comic stop. “Oh, I see, it was a joke about how I don’t separate my public and private lives. Hardly in a relationship for five minutes and already trying to get me to switch my phone off while at home, Detective Saito?”

Ryousuke shrugs. “I only have the single phone, and it hasn’t got a single personal number saved in it so I certainly do not have grounds to complain.” 

Ryousuke regrets saying it the moment he does. He knows that’s the kind of comment that makes people do things like give him sad, pitying looks, or make him ask internet strangers to fake date.

“Then perhaps this, er, fake relationship might at least change some of our rather negative habits huh, Saito-san.” 

Ryousuke only sees honesty when he looks at Tokuda. “Yes. Yes, perhaps it might.” He allows a brief smile, a flicker to show his own good will.

“While I treasure being the first personal number in your phone, this relationship might struggle if you don’t like apples, Saito-san!”

“Hm?” Ryousuke follows Tokuda’s eyes down to the small, untouched plate of apple segments in front of him, slightly browning now from being out for so long. “Oh.” Ryousuke feels a sudden need to apologise, which is a rare sentiment. Even more unnervingly he feels like he must apologise to the _apples_ , as if they had a mind to accept, or even to absorb, an apology. Instead of following that absurd instinct, he picks up a segment by its toothpick.

“Please, don’t force yourself Saito-san, I was just fooling around!”

 _I’m doing this to please Tokuda-san_ , Ryousuke registers. _But this is also a business agreement,_ a separate part of his mind argues, _and in business deals where the deal is in your favour, it does one good to keep the other person on your side._

It’s lost a slight bit of its earlier crunch, softer now that it’s warmed in the last of the early-Autumn warmth, but the apple sends him right back to his childhood - to those damned boxes of family-farm fruits. Sweet, tangy, the undeniable taste of nature without chemical pesticides or fertilisers. 

“Verdict?” Tokuda asks, after Ryousuke finishes the plate in silence. 

Ryousuke wipes his mouth with his handkerchief. “They taste good.”

Tokuda is silent for a beat, then his widest grin emerges. “Good!”

-

Ryousuke doesn’t find this sort of thing very interesting. 

They have been sat watching a Chinese lady prepare several types of tea for the last several hours - each variety needing a different tea pot, different boiling temperature, different arrangements of cups and pouring vessels and any number of other variations of preparation. 

Ryousuke will admit that each tea has tasted different, some undeniably better than the 100 yen boxes of tea he picks up from the convenience store near his apartment, but some of these ceremonies are… antiquated. 

The lady has laid out five small shot-sized cups in a circle, and is now pouring tea from the pot in a circular motion, each cup overflowing so that it flows over into its neighbours’. “So that there can be no accusation of poison,” the lady is saying, “They would pour the tea like so during meetings between vital officials.”

It makes sense, or would have made sense were they not living in the modern day. Ryousuke rejects the instinct to send a ‘can you believe this’ look at Tokuda, having learnt the hard way that Tokuda is incredibly invested in it all. _Ceremony, the art of tea, let the mind float and relax…_

Tokuda looks like he's having fun, despite the dullness of it all. He’s asking what seems to be (from the look on the teacher’s face) all of the right questions, and he knows how to talk about the different teas using words that simply baffle Ryousuke. 

Ryousuke has spent so much time in police conferences and routine business meetings that he’s found it easier to retain his look of attentive indifference as his resting face. It tells people that he’s listening to their every damned word to make sure they’re not fucking up, but by god would he rather stab his own eyes out.

He’s not aware that he’s making the face until Tokuda turns to look at him and his whole body stills like a prey animal who’s just realised he’s eating his lunch from the same plate as a wolf.

Once he’s registered the look, Ryousuke realises Tokuda stops asking questions, and the rest of the lesson passes quicker without the interruptions. Ryousuke certainly isn’t complaining, but he’s left with the certainty that this man has cut himself off from happiness because of his actions. 

Is… Is that what compromise is? He’s not sure. He doesn’t think so, because he’s fairly sure compromise would entail them both feeling satisfied, and he’s not sure either of them are.

They are standing at the train station, the only line that takes them back to the town from the city. They’ve not said anything besides practical conversation since leaving the tea room, and Ryousuke is fairly certain that the next time Tokuda opens his mouth, he’s going to tell Ryousuke that he can’t keep this rouse up anymore. 

“I’m afraid I’ve been a terrible date Saito-san,” is not at all what Ryousuke was expecting to hear. 

“Not at all.”

“You found it dull and completely not to your taste. I got so eager about the tea that I completely neglected you.”

“No, no, I just…” Ryousuke isn’t used to having to make up excuses; white lies to cover his rudeness, but he does want this relationship, fake as it is, to go well. He’s almost one hundred percent certain that Mayor and lawyer Tokuda, a nice man wanting to be seen as gay is a _once in a lifetime_ cover story. “I didn’t understand it.”

“What didn’t you understand?”

“The need for ceremony,” Ryousuke lies.

“Well that’s…” Tokuda visibly flounders. “The teacher explained that each one had a different need, and that the ceremonies matched the occasion…” Tokuda looks up and considers Ryousuke. “But that’s not the truth, is it, Saito-san?”

“Uh, no, it…”

“I cannot believe that a detective of the police cannot understand the need for ceremony.” Tokuda strokes his chin. “You are allowed to have found it boring, Saito-san.”

“No, no, not boring-”

Tokuda is beginning to smile, which makes Ryousuke take a cautious step back. 

“Saito-san,” Tokuda says, “While I appreciate you trying your hardest, it’s fine if we have different interests! We can still… be partners and enjoy different hobbies.” 

“I don’t… but… do you not feel disrespected? I could not hold my attention on an activity you appreciate for longer than half an hour.” 

“Not at all. What are your hobbies?”

“I don’t… I don’t have any.”

“None? That cannot be true. How do you spend your days off?”

“I… re-read case-files. Do my laundry. Clean my house. Any other small duties, like visiting the bank or doing my taxes.”

“Do you… watch sport or listen to the radio as you fold your laundry?”

“I listen to the news.” 

“Baseball?”

“No?”

“Betting on racehorses?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Art galleries? Novels? The zoo?”

“As I say, I have no hobbies.”

“Huh.”

Ryousuke shifts a little, uncomfortable with this man scrutinising him so hard. “As you see, I am a terribly boring man. I work, I sleep, I work again. I would not hold it against you should you desire to break this off now.”

“No, no! Of course not! I was simply thinking that my secretary might be right?”

“About?”

“She’s always complained that I think too hard about work, hardly ever take time for myself. I do read, and like visiting galleries on the occasion she can join me, but I hardly ever take the time to do something for myself. I hadn’t thought about how… sad that would make her until now.”

Ryousuke connects the dots, then balks. “Please, Tokuda-san, I would rather you not feel sad about my life situation. I have chosen to exist in this fashion. I enjoy - I am satisfied with my life!” 

This does nothing to placate the determined look in Tokuda’s eyes, and when he speaks again it is with conviction. “Saito-san, I have decided. We are going to find you a hobby, and we are going to become the most cultured couple the town has ever seen.”

Ryousuke is about to make a horrified reply, but the train chooses then to arrive, and he is dragged onto the train. 

-

“Can justice ever come from a single rulebook?”

“Philosophy?”

“Paraphrased from an episode of Star Trek, I’m afraid. _The Next Generation._ I think it was Riker-san.”

“Ah.” Ryousuke takes a sip of his beer. They’d thought that a simple first step into hobbies might be to watch some television together, to channel surf a bit and find a genre of show they might both enjoy.

“You’ve watched it?”

“I do not watch television as a recreation.”

“It’s an old series, from the 90s.”

“Ah.”

“Not much of a Trekkie?”

“Even as a child I didn’t find much enjoyment in television. ...you?”

“There was— I spent some time, as a youth, in a place without much but books and television. I cannot say I enjoyed either much at the time, but now I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to learn while I was there.”

“A youth camp?” Ryousuke asks, trying to parse what situation Tokuda could be talking about.

“Something like that.” 

Tokuda looks back at the TV, to the variety show that had been playing, and switches the channel. Considering neither of them had been paying attention, it probably was time to switch. 

A nature documentary is next, and while neither of them are particularly enthralled by the topic, it is both a factual show and aesthetically pleasing and they manage to watch the entire show without complaint. The next episode is on after, too, and they spend the rest of the evening with their beers, their snacks, and the animals. 

-

Tokuda tells Ryousuke that the next logical step from nature documentary is a date to the zoo. He also brings up the fact that, if they are to continue to commit to this, his daughter, Kosue, a child no more than 7, must also be comfortable in Ryousuke’s company. 

This is fair, Ryousuke supposes, but he’s also at a complete loss. He finds communicating with a man his own age hard, he’s never spent a prolonged time with a child outside of police training, and he’s certainly never entertained paternal thoughts before. 

He supposes this child, Kosue, is one of the final keys to unlocking a fairly easy ride in the personal life handbook, but he’s not sure how he’s supposed to begin bribing her to his side. He supposes talking of her like a corrupt cop with a rat isn’t a great start. 

Ryousuke waits for the pair at the gates of the zoo. He feels incredibly vulnerable in his clothing; new, because bastard Officer Tanaka had vetoed his going in a suit. He is wearing a cream turtleneck and dark jeans, arms crossed against his chest in the hope that this will protect him from any more dark stares. He’s one of the only men at this park, and he supposes a lonely, older man standing outside a children’s attraction isn’t exactly a good sign. 

He checks his watch obsessively and hates himself for arriving a half hour early. He had wanted to beat the rush in the line for tickets (and had wanted to get a head start on Tokuda so that he could treat the pair) but now the father and daughter were running ten minutes late. Tokuda had had the good graces to text Ryousuke an update, letting him know that Kosue had had a bathtime tantrum and it had been hell trying to pack her into the car, but that they were on their way. At least he hadn’t been stood up. 

By the time the two arrive, Ryousuke has to make a real effort to smile. He can’t allow something like real child problems affect his temperament. He remembers his father being irritable and finding trips out with his family a real chore; having to bend to his father’s mood swings, and he does not want Kosue’s first impression of him to be the same. 

“I’m so sorry, Saito-san!” Tokuda is already saying, bowing low as he and Kosue approach. 

“No, no, it’s fine,”

“I promise we’re not always so late, and I really tried, but I should have anticipated leaving late and letting you know earlier,”

“It’s fine, Tokuda-san, please,”

“I really should have bathed her last night, but she was so tired, and I thought, what can be the harm waking up slightly earlier in the morning, only-”

“Jun.” The man stops his rambling and looks up at the use of his first name. “I’m saying it’s fine.” He tries a smile - small but genuine, surprising even himself. He actually doesn’t mind this man being late, and he doesn’t need the bowing and scraping of apology. 

He holds out his hand, and Tokuda takes it, and they shake. Tokuda’s appalled and ashamed face instantly transforms into radiance as he focuses his attention on his daughter. 

“Saito-san, this is my daughter Kosue. Kosue, this is Uncle Saito!” 

Kosue looks at Ryousuke, face completely blank, eyes saying absolutely nothing. Then she opens her arms out.

“What is she doing?” Ryousuke asks.

“Hug.”

“Hug,” Tokuda echoes, nothing but electrifying warmth in his voice.

“From me?” Ryousuke asks, directing the question first at Tokuda, then at the girl herself.

“Hug,” she insists. Ryousuke opens up his body-language slightly. He doesn’t really want this small, soft creature anywhere near him, but hugs were small and brief efforts that he supposed he could sacrifice.

He kneels on the concrete ground and allows her to wrap her arms around his neck, squeezing. Then she lets go and immediately takes her father’s hand in her left and Ryousuke’s in her right. “I wanna see the elephants!” 

Ryousuke looks around, mortified. The park full of women are definitely watching the trio now, many of them talking behind their hands. They’re in the city park, so it’s not like everyone here is from their town, wouldn’t know them as mayor and detective by sight, but it’s also not guaranteed that they wouldn’t, that word wouldn’t get back- 

He wants to rip his hand away from this child’s, breaking what is essentially him holding Tokuda’s hand in public, but even he knows that good humans don’t repulse away from children. 

Instead, he tries to shoot a desperate look at Tokuda, only he finds a look of pure serenity on his partner’s face. Tokuda is grinning at him. “She likes you,” he mouths, before addressing his daughter. “We’ve got to go buy tickets first, Kosu-chan!”

“No- no, I…” Ryousuke fumbles in his jeans pocket, slightly awkwardly reaching into the left pocket with his right hand, fishing out the tickets. “I had the time, so.”

“Oh, no, Saito-san! We’re dragging you to the zoo, you shouldn’t have! I’ll, here, let me get my wallet-”

“No, it’s my treat.” Ryousuke is determined to get something right, and today he’s going to make sure he pays for everything Kosue and Tokuda want. 

The elephants are fine, he supposes, as are the rest of the attractions at the park. He’s not entirely sure what joy the child is getting from looking at these animals, their looks and behaviour just-too similar to the men he’s visited in prison to really enjoy, but she does like them, and she doesn’t shy away from dragging her father and her uncle from exhibit to exhibit in what seems to be the most haphazard manner. 

Tokuda seems just as happy allowing her to dictate their route, which irks Ryousuke a bit, knowing that they’ve doubled up on exhibits and that at this pace, they won’t have seen everything in the park. If he had been inclined to, he could have plotted a far better route that allowed ample time with each animal… but he doesn’t feel it’s particularly appropriate to mention this to Tokuda or Kozue. Perhaps the next time they come he’ll float the offer. 

_Next time,_ he realises as he’s picking up a plush elephant in the gift shop. He’d honestly expected this day to be every kind of torture on him; a trial to make it through in order to win an easy life… but he’s obviously enjoyed himself a little, if he’s thinking about next time. He’s paying for the toy before he realises that he’s doing it. A gift, for Kosue, who’s in the toilet with Tokuda. He had had the thought that she might like it, so he bought it. At the counter, he sees a small phone-charm of a family of otters. Two parents and a small child, surrounded by love hearts and sparkles. He pays for that, too. 

Tokuda and Kosue are sat at a table outside the gift shop, Kosue devouring an ice-cream with Tokuda mopping up after her. Tokuda smiles as Ryousuke sits down, then gapes as Ryousuke pushes the bag across to him. “A present for Kosue,” he says, simply.

“Saito-san! You shouldn’t have!” 

“But I did,” he says simply. 

He passes a smaller paper bag to Tokuda. “And a present for you.”

“Me?” Tokuda seems almost horrified by the gift, taking the paper bag like it might burn his skin to touch it. 

“You may return either if you’d like, I just…” Ryousuke doesn’t know how to end that thought. ‘I was just thinking about you’ sounds far too forward, and not really true. “If you don’t like them, you can return them.”

Tokuda holds Ryousuke’s eye for a long moment, face not showing anything but eyes full of some sort of emotion. Ryousuke has to break the contact before he goes mad with it. 

“Kosu-chan!” Tokuda says instead, “Uncle Saito bought you a gift!” 

Kosue almost rips the bag open trying to get at the toy, and immediately hugs it to her chest when she sees that it’s a baby-blue elephant. “ELEPHANT!” she cries with delight, alternating between showing the toy off to her father and squeezing it in every direction, making the toy make weird faces. “She’s called Zou-chan!” Kosue announces, before kissing the toy’s nose. 

Ryousuke watches this ritual with great fascination. This is possibly the first gift he’s presented to someone that was not obligatory: a bottle of sake or some mindless gift from the station shop for his colleagues on special occasions. It makes him feel… he’s not sure what, but certainly _feel._

By the time he looks back at Tokuda, he’s forgotten the second gift, and gets hit in the chest to see that Tokuda is staring at the charm with eyes that look - _Oh God, he’s crying_. 

Tokuda is biting his lip, and only gets pulled out of whatever thoughts he’s thinking by Kosue pulling at his sleeve and saying “Papa, look, Zou-chan’s face goes all smooshed when you do this!” 

Tokuda looks at her and, while she’s distracted, wipes at his eyes before fully focusing on her, playing with the elephant and pretending to feed it some of her abandoned ice cream. 

Ryousuke watches Tokuda clutch the charm in his hand throughout, kept locked in his palm. 

So he wasn’t crying because it was a bad present, then? But why on earth would something as simple as a phone charm cause such extreme emotion? Perhaps he had reminded Tokuda of some trauma - perhaps of whatever happened to this child’s mother. God, maybe Kosue’s mother’s favourite animal had been otters, and Ryousuke had unwittingly reminded the man of his late wife. Great. 

He kicks himself all the way to Tokuda’s car, watching the man load his child into the back seat. 

“Are you sure we can’t offer you a lift back to town, Saito-san?”

“Ah, no, it’s fine, I already have the train ticket.”

“Still! It’s honestly the least we could do!”

“I think I would prefer the journey alone,” Ryousuke says, honestly, and he’s surprised to see understanding on Tokuda’s face rather than hurt. 

“As you wish.” Tokuda looks down, then up again at Ryousuke. “Today has been wonderful, Saito-san, thank you. Kosue really loved you, even without the present. I’m afraid I’m never going to get that thing out of her grasp!”

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“That wasn’t a complaint, Saito-san!” Tokuda looks highly amused. “I could never have imagined… I’m really thankful. For my gift, too.”

“Oh. Yes. It was just something I picked up. I hope you don’t… You can throw it away if you want.”

“Throw it away?!” Tokuda looks offended then, pulling out the phone Ryousuke can recognise as his real-personal one. The phone charm dangles, pride of place. “I’m telling everyone I know that my partner-” Tokuda loses steam a little, “That we went to the zoo and my partner bought me this gift. If that’s amenable to you. We can work it into the contract, maybe.”

“Ah. Yes. The contract.” Because this isn’t real. This is two men finding an excuse not to have real partners. Yes. “We should meet once before next week, before the party.”

“Yes. That would be good.” Tokuda has straightened his back, looks like he’s in lawyer-mode. “Ah, my secretary, she said we should maybe… take some photos of us together. So we have phone backgrounds and things to put on desks. 

“Mm. Yes. That sounds sensible.” 

They take a couple of selfies, outside the park gates, but Ryousuke can sense that they’re both too tense, that the photos look stiff and staged. He wishes they had taken some even an hour before, with Kosue, when they really had looked like a family. 

It hurts him a little, that thought. 

He tries not to think about it on the train ride home, instead attempting to do some admin work on his phone for the cases he knows he has to work on in the morning. 

Eventually he gives up doing either and spends the train ride contemplating the scenery from the window. 

-

“I’m a pretty confident cook!” Tokuda had said, over the phone, when they had been planning their pre-party plan. Tokuda had invited Ryousuke over to his house with the offer of dinner and a chat, and Ryousuke had no other alternative, so he stood on Tokuda’s doorstep with a bottle of middle-of-the-line sake for them, and a box of chocolates that the store attendant had assured were good for children for Kosue. 

They ate dinner almost as soon as Ryousuke had arrived at six, far earlier than the dinners he was used to grabbing at near-midnight after voluntary overtime, because Kosue was apparently very hungry and they had been waiting for him to start. 

It was curry rice with, Tokuda said, evidently proud of himself, apple bits in it to balance the sweetness. It was nice, hearty, potatoes and carrots and rice and apple soft and warmly spiced. He could tell, though, that the pot had been slightly burnt and that the rice was slightly overcooked and too-watery… but he was far from someone who would complain about nutritional, home-cooked food, whatever its state. 

Ryousuke was then left alone with the washing up as Tokuda rushed to give Kosue a bath and put the girl to bed so that they could chat alone. 

Ryousuke checked his emails once he was done, mindlessly snacking on the bunny-shaped apple slices Tokuda had made for the table. 

“Thank you for waiting, Saito-san!” Tokuda slid onto his pillow on the other side of the table, spreading an assortment of folders, papers and notebooks between them. 

“I’ll try to make this as painless as possible, but if I use any words you don’t understand, or need clarification on, please just say, okay?”

“Ah, yes, okay.” 

“This contract is an open one, more like an agreement, that can be added to or amended by either of us at any time. I see it more as a safety net than a rulebook, if you understand me? Should something go wrong, we will have something to use as directions, but we need not feel bound by acting in certain ways that may feel uncomfortable at the moment. Yes?”

“Yes.” 

“Great. Shall we work through this chronologically? Feel free to take a break at any point you feel necessary.”

“Ah, sure.”

“One, our ‘backstory’. I see this as containing what phrases we use for one another, what nicknames, etc. I’m not much of an actor, though, so if it’s all the same with you, I would suggest something simple?”

“Such as?”

“We met at an event some years ago, five, perhaps, and we have been partners since?”

“Will Kosue not tell on us?”

“How do you mean?”

“I only met the girl this week. Will her school teachers and friends not find it strange that she has not talked of me, or drawn me in her class assignments, should we have been partners all this time?”

Tokuda hummed, thoughtful. “I suppose we have the homophobia angle. I’m opposed to saying I was ashamed of our relationship, but people may… ‘understand’ should we have kept the relationship on the low, for her sake.”

Ryousuke shrugged one shoulder. It affected him far less, so was really Tokuda’s decision. 

“What do you think?”

“Hm?”

“This affects you too, Saito-san. What do you think?”

“Oh. Uh. Would… would an alternate be that, er, we have been friends for a while, but have only recently, er, begun…”

“Dating?”

“Yes, dating.”

“You’re going to have to practise saying the word, if people are to believe you.” 

“Ah. Yes. Sorry.” 

Tokuda laughed, but it didn’t seem vindictive. “Yes, you’re probably right, if the relationship is new, it will go some way to explaining some of our fumbles.”

“‘Fumbles’?”

“I’m assuming we’re going to trip up, unless you’re a far better liar than I would have you for?”

“No, no, you’re probably right.”

“Dear? Boyfriend? Lover?”

Ryousuke began to feel himself burn a little with embarrassment at the onslaught of names. “I don’t really… I don’t think I suit any… of them… You? _Anata? Kareshi? Koibito? Danna?_ ”

He snuck a glimpse of Tokuda, and found the man looking similarly abashed and shaking his head, deeply flustered. “Pātonā, as in, the English, ‘partner’. Many people might not understand its meaning, but… by context?”

It was far less embarrassing than the alternatives, so Ryousuke was quick to agree. 

Tokuda cleared his throat, scratching a few notes onto his notebook, his ears still slightly red. “Public Displays of Affection,” he said, as if reading off some obscure law. 

“I’m okay with, you know, whatever,” Ryousuke said quickly. 

Tokuda shot him a disappointed look. “No, Saito-san, we’re establishing boundaries. I can’t put ‘whatever’ into our agreement.”

“But it’s the truth. Whatever you deem appropriate.”

“What’s appropriate for me is different from you!”

“But-” Ryousuke bit his lip, took a deep breath. “I do not know what is appropriate for relationships such as ours. What I’m trying to say is that I am happy to take your lead.”

“Forgive me for reading between the lines, but you’ve not been in a relationship before?”

“No.”

“Ah, good!”

“Good?”

“No, sorry, me neither.”

“You?!”

“Yes, me.”

“But you, you’re…”

“I’m?” 

“An incredibly handsome mayor and lawyer, with a daughter.” 

“Kosue is adopted,” Tokuda says, frankly, apparently ignoring the first half of the sentence.

Ryousuke nudged his glasses up his nose, smelling the avoidance but choosing, this once, to ignore it. “Public displays of affection may be… difficult, as neither of them have, er, anything to base our actions on.”

“Would you like to practise?”

Ryousuke coughed, then kept coughing as he choked on his own spit, only serving to make the moment more mortifying. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Tokuda was saying, coming to sit beside Ryousuke and patting him on the back. “I shouldn’t have- that was very sudden of me-” 

Ryousuke shook his head, trying to get any words out, something like ‘oh no it’s fine’ or ‘i was just shocked’ or ‘this is just a very unusual situation for me’ but all that comes out is a small, even more embarrassing squeak.

He settles for burying his burning face in his hands. 

God, he’s a nearly-fifty-year-old man, sitting with another man his own age, looking like a complete fool. If this man didn’t think he was terrible before, now he certainly would. 

He felt fingers touching his, slowly peeling them off of his face, leaving smudged prints on his glasses. 

Tokuda was looking at him, sympathetic and amused. 

Tokuda kissed him on the cheek, then pulled back. “Practise.” 

Ryousuke felt very warm, very suddenly. His fingers touched the cheek Tokuda had just kissed, then he slowly brought his hand back to his lap. 

_Practise. More to come. In the future._

“Saito-san, before we enter this contract, I want to be honest with you.”

Ryousuke stiffened slightly, careful not to make his sudden distrust obvious. “Oh?”

“Tokuda Jun is my public name.” Tokuda shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “My true name is Baba Jun.”

“Baba is an unusual name.”

Tokuda - no, Baba - snorts a little at that. “Yes, it is.”

“You changed it because you didn’t want to be Mayor Baba Jun?”

“I changed it because I have spent time in prison.”

“For?”

“A man was abusing me. I hit him back, in self-defence. He hit his head, hard, and died. I went to jail for manslaughter.”

“Oh.” 

“Yes.” Tokuda — Baba Jun looks up at where Ryousuke assumes Kosue’s room is. “If we’re to continue, I did not want to hide this from you.”

“What did it feel like?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The person, the man abusing you. What did it feel like, knowing that he was dead?”

Tokuda watched Ryousuke for a long time. Not shocked, but certainly weighing him up. 

“Empty.”

“Empty?”

“Not satisfaction, not horror, not pleasure, not hope, not fear. Pure emptiness. This man would never hurt me, never hurt anyone again… but he would also never do anything else again. Never grow, never learn, never face repercussions.”

Ryousuke takes the time to swallow this. Tokuda allows him it. 

“Is the public aware of your real name?”

“As far as anyone is concerned,” Tokuda says, “Baba Jun is dead. He served his time, he was the victim of an earthquake.” 

Ryousuke finds himself nodding. Not agreeing, not yet, but nodding. 

Empty. 

He can understand that. For some reason, he can understand it. 

He can still feel where Tokuda— Baba— Jun’s lips have touched his cheek. 

He feels like he should be at a tipping point; a revelation away from changing the track of his life. 

Later, maybe. 

Because of this man, but not yet. Not quite 

He takes a pen from his inner jacket pocket and turns the document on the table so it faces him. He re-reads the pages, then signs his name where appropriate. “What would you like me to call you?”

“Tokuda, please, I would like ‘Baba Jun’ to remain dead.”

“No, I meant…” Ryousuke fixes his glasses again, realising that he’s developing a nervous tick. “In private. You wouldn’t want to be Baba-san, not ever?”

Tokuda bites his lip, forehead creasing, obviously deeply fraught by the question. He looks, in that moment, more vulnerable than Ryousuke could ever even imagine the man could feel. 

“It’s fine, if not,” Ryousuke adds, “I thought I should simply give you the option.”

“Jun. Maybe, maybe you could start with Jun. Not many… Nobody calls me by my first name. Maybe you could call me Jun.”

“Jun-san, then.” Ryousuke flickers a small smile, barely a curl of his lips, but it reaches his eyes, and he thinks Jun will probably notice that. “You may call me Ryousuke, if you deem it appropriate.”

Jun’s own smile is far wider, and certainly makes his own eyes bright. “I will, Ryousuke-san,” he says, adding a mocking “When I should deem the manner appropriate.” 

Jun packs Ryousuke off with a couple of bottles of freshly pressed apple juice and a small box of apples for his department as pre-meeting gifts, and Ryousuke feels like _later_ might not be as far away as he had thought. 

-

The apples are devoured in less than an hour. He’s not sure how the four people in his office have managed to sneak to the break room quite so many times while he’s not paying them attention, but he counts seven apple cores in the bin by the time he’s stood up to get his ten o’clock coffee. 

He’s not known as a man easy to extrude company gossip from; far from, but he can sense all eyes on him from throughout the police station all day. He likes to think he leads a relatively invisible life: old and boring enough not to have to endure the endless rumours and cycles of new staff wanting to be clued in - whether from personal or professional interest, but there is something about an unmarried, unfriendly, highly successful detective that attracts attention. Plenty of young people have tried their hand at ‘luring’ him into traps: from drinking parties to late-night bathroom breaks, every effort has been made to… analyse his predilections. 

He’s seen every trick in the book: from unbuttoned blouses to referencing certain clubs, the constant re-filling of his sake to anonymous love letters and, once, an attempted drugging. That young officer certainly hadn’t stayed in the force for long. It’s not so much hazardous as it is annoying. Every year the cycle clicks back around: new staff, new rumour mills, new attempts. 

Well, this is the year it all ends. It’s the prefecture’s harvest festival season, and as one of the police department’s oldest officers (and the one who cares little about his evenings being free,) he’s the one who gets paraded at events. Highly public events. This year, he is going to have a partner. A male partner. The mayor of the town. 

It certainly won’t be a quiet year, not to start with, but by god by the time the new staff start in April, there will be no more attempt on his sanity by people trying to ‘work him out’. 

“Oh Detective Saito?” his officers will say, “Yeah, he’s in a relationship with Mayor Tokuda.” Ha. That’ll shut them up. “Better not talk to him about it,” they’ll add, “Don’t want to get in trouble with the mayor!”

So he can endure the staring today. He will endure the drama at the harvest festival celebrations. He will endure a torment of questions the days, possibly weeks after the festival, but then all will calm, and all will be fine. He will have a peaceful existence. All will be well.

-

Bastard Officer Tanaka is sat on his desk when he comes back with coffee. The man is tossing one of the shiny red apples from hand to hand. 

“Off.” 

Tanaka grins as he launches himself off of the desk, taking a huge bite from the apple. “So?”

“‘So’ what?” 

“So, how’s your boyfriend?”

Saito sighs. He sits at his desk, carefully puts his coffee on its coaster and begins to sort through his folders. “You have work to be doing, Officer Tanaka. Personal conversations should be had at break times only.”

“But you don’t take breaks, and you don’t talk to me outside of work, so…” He takes another bite from his apple. 

“So you should be getting back to your desk and continuing with following up on yesterday’s leads. Yes, I agree.”

“Did he say yes?”

“Officer Tanaka, I’m warning you.”

“Ooh, is that a no?”

“I won’t ask you again, Tanaka.”

“Only, someone brought in these apples this morning, and I know a certain _someone_ has an apple farm…”

“Officer Tanaka.”

“Were they a let-down present? ‘Sorry, detective, that’s a very weird plan and I’m not into it?’” 

Ryousuke takes a slow breath in, then breathes out. “How do I make you go away?”

“I suppose you could fire me,” Tanaka says, talking around a mouthful of apple, “But then you wouldn’t have anyone to get you drunk and plot for you.” 

Ryousuke just sighs. “What do you want?”

“Nothing! Just want to know whether my plan is going well!”

“Yes. Now, go back to work.” 

“Yes? That’s it? That’s all I get for months of planning, of hard work-”

“You downloaded one app and sent one message.”

“Hours of hard work?”

“It wasn’t even him you were talking to, it was his secretary.”

“Even better! A kindred spirit, too much of a fossil to use a simple dating app. I’d plan the wedding, but you’d have to move abroad first.”

“Back to work, Tanaka.”

“Where do you think has the quickest naturalisation process, Europe? America? I suppose you could move to Taiwan-”

“Enough.” 

The room goes still, even the officers at the other desks ducking their heads closer to their computers to avoid whatever is happening. 

Tanaka has enough intelligence to go quiet, hands behind his back. “You’ve had your fun, I’ve said it’s working, now get back to work.”

“Yes, sir.” Tanaka bows slightly. “Sorry, Detective.”

Ryousuke dismisses him with a shake of his head. 

It’s not as if this is new, this kind of teasing. He’s been dealing with Tanaka since the man was a baby-faced new recruit, one of the only people both annoying enough and capable enough not to have been scared away by Ryousuke’s methods, but there’s something about Tanaka’s words that cut a little too close, today. 

Ryousuke looks at his coffee, black, one sugar, and wonders how Jun takes his coffee. Whether he drinks coffee at all, or whether he only drinks tea and apple juice. 

What does he want from this relationship?

A cover story. 

So, then, why, when he’s thinking about things like his coffee, does his mind fill with thoughts of Jun? 

Has he finally reached a point where loneliness has taken him, that he will attach himself, barnacle-like onto the first receptive object?

Does he want company? Quilty company, from people he enjoys spending time with, both man and child?

Does he… is it possible that he is capable of having _feelings_ — romantic feelings — for someone who, at best, is wanting a deal: a simple, platonic favour?

Ryousuke realises, quite suddenly, that he is a very big fool. ‘All will be well’? When will it be well? Won’t this rouse mean having to be seen in public with the mayor, often? Won’t people remark on their living in entirely different parts of town? Won’t Kosue require some structure from an alleged parental figure? When did the rouse end — when one of them found a real partner? When one of them _died_? Would they have to retire together? He supposes they could ‘break up’ but would that not simply invite more nosy do-gooders into his life, trying to set him up now that they think that he’s gay? 

There is no marriage ceremony for them in Japan, but soon, there might be. What then? How far do they go? 

Ryousuke’s traitorous mind supplies him with several more images, images of a life he might see on TV: of a happy couple spending family time together, romantic time together, in the kitchen, at an amusement park, in… in a bedroom. 

Ryousuke stands, abruptly, grabs his jacket and his equipment and heads out. 

-

The mayor’s office has an open-door policy. When the mayor himself is busy: with a pre-planned meeting or when he is at court, one of his many staff take his place, logging complaints and requests that, the office claims, go directly to the mayor. 

Ryousuke isn’t waiting long before the mayor’s door opens and a beaming old woman totters out, her joyous relative, a granddaughter perhaps, clutching her arm. The mayor takes a brief, sweeping look around the waiting room and catches Ryousuke’s eye. 

“Saito-san! What a surprise!”

“Mayor Tokuda…”

“But I am sorry, I can’t spare much time right now, these people have been waiting, some of them for hours. It would not do to grant favours, even to you.” 

Even if he wasn’t trained to detect sudden changes in atmosphere, Ryousuke can tell the room tone has changed palpably. Nobody is looking at the pair, not directly, but there has been an intake of breath, and he can tell all attention is focused on them. 

The mayor touches Ryousuke’s forearm; soft and careful, still giving him a generous and kind look. “Perhaps you might join me for dinner later? After work? 

Ryousuke can see an aunt in the corner put her handkerchief to her mouth, like it’s all she can do to jam her gossip back in. 

“I…”

The mayor’s hand slides from his forearm until he has taken Ryousuke’s hand in his own, then places his right over it too. He looks one hair away from bringing the embraced hands to his lips, but he must sense the _everything_ in the air: Ryousuke’s panic, the room’s intensity, the suddenness of it all, and he settles on a gentle pat instead. 

“The usual time, Ryousuke-san?” the mayor asks, directing Ryousuke out of the room, one hand on his back as he deposits Ryousuke back onto the street. 

Ryousuke can hear the chatter from the room they’ve just vacated, like a field of locusts preparing to swarm.

“What?” he whispers, harsh, once he’s sure they’re alone, “Was that?”

“I don’t get very many chances to drop hints, Saito-san! You have excellent timing, the school governor's sister-in-law was in the waiting room, so word should already be getting back to those who need to know before the big day!” 

A pit forms in Ryousuke’s stomach, something he’s never felt to this extent before. This isn’t the anticipation before the hunt, this isn’t the joy at finally catching a killer. This isn’t the fear just before the jump into the darkest of lairs. This is new. This is unknown. This is uncertainty.

“So,” Tokuda says, excited. “What can I help you with?”

“I—” His next words should be simple. _I need this to stop, now. I’m very much freaking out about the whole concept. I think this might be a deeper trap we are setting for ourselves than we think. I cannot see an end. I cannot see us winning_. But they don’t come. Instead, his mind supplies what always comes easy for him: the simplest truth. “I was thinking about you.”

“Oh.” 

Horrified, Ryousuke’s brain empties itself of all logical thought. “Not that- I wasn’t — that’s not—”

“And you just had to see me?” Tokuda asks, barely looking like he’s recovered but certainly less of a flustered, speechless mess.

God, if only Ryousuke could be him: the perfect, attractive lawyer, good with people, good with words, good with the world… 

_Attractive_. 

It was certainly undeniable, and Ryousuke could grasp the concept of attractiveness, a scale of human from ugly to pretty. He had had many a witness describe a thief or a murderer to him using this scale, and he could understand it, from a social point of view, most of the time. 

But this… This thought, this thought did not seem to have originated from that part of his brain that typically dealt with scales and logistics. This thought seemed to have arrived courtesy of his emotional centre: newly discovered and wanting to cause havoc. 

“The offer still stands,” Tokuda says, “Dinner later, if you’d like to. I can cook again, or we can go out to eat. But not if you’re busy.”

“Not busy,” the last remnants of Ryousuke’s brain feed him. “Dinner would be good.”

And there it is again, Tokuda’s smile. _Jun_ ’s smile. Smaller, more private than the mayor’s smile. A smile that didn’t just make you feel like part of a community that loved you, but a smile that said: I see you, and only you. 

_God_ , Ryousuke thought on loop as he walked back to the police station, _I am fucked._

-

Dinner is blessedly easy. Kosue does not want to go to bed and with no paperwork to finish, Tokuda is more relaxed in letting her stay up with them. She puts on a film she likes and she carries most of the conversation, letting Ryousuke fall into the role of observer. He has a cup of tea, and he has a place at the table, and he is perfectly content to half-watch the child’s film and half-watch the parent and child, warmed far more by the images than by the tea.

Eventually Kosue does fall asleep, and both men have early mornings so there is no awkward gap to fill, no time to wile away with anxious thought. Their schedules, it seems, align almost scarily well, and they are both tired and know when it’s their bed-time. 

On his doorstep, Jun once again leans in and kisses Ryousuke’s cheek, smiles, and waves his car off until Ryousuke has disappeared around the corner. 

Ryousuke nearly drives into a wall, so lost in thought is he. 

-

“I don’t know what we thought was going to happen,” Jun is saying, lying on his back in the middle of his living room, still dressed from the party. It’s weird to think that less than a month ago, all Ryousuke knew of this man was that he was the upright, just and well-celebrated mayor of the town. Now he’s seeing him dazed and dishevelled, wallowing on his tatami floor. “It wasn’t as if we had baked in a whole speech about, you know, us, in the festival!” 

“Mm,” Ryousuke says. This is the third time Jun’s been through this cycle since the end of the party, and he’s given up on disagreeing. 

“I just — I just, I don’t think we practised enough, and I felt so, so awkward, in front of all those people, and it isn’t like Japanese people kiss in public anyway, so it would be strange for me to have just, you know, _kissed you_ in front of all those people, but I would have, if the chance had come up, but then you were surrounded all evening, and then the governor's sister-in-law was there and…” Jun lets out a long groan. “I failed. I’m sorry, Saito-san, you trusted me to do a job and I failed.” 

Ryousuke takes a deep breath and tries again. “It’s fine, Tokuda-san. Really. There was no opportunity that you didn’t take. It’s fine.”

“But we planned! We had a contract! This was a good chance to reveal all to the town, to try to change things, and it didn’t happen.” 

“Not for want of trying, Tokuda-san, even I know that.”

“And when I tried to call you my partner, the councillor asked what business we were trying to start, and I couldn’t find the words…”

“It’s honestly fine, Tokuda-san.”

“Because I saw the journalist, and I didn’t recognise her as one of the usual journalists, and it put me off-”

“Jun.” Rousuke reaches out and takes Jun’s hand. “You’re spiralling.”

“Spiralling?”

“This was just one event. You’re right, in fact, about it being weird that we would ‘announce it’ at a public party. It makes more sense for people to find out naturally.”

“Naturally…”

“Certainly less suspicious than never having been seen interacting before and then, er, making out at an official gathering.” 

Tokuda rolls over to face Ryousuke, still holding his hand. “Really?”

“Sure. I’d find it strange if I stopped and thought about it.”

Tokuda stops and thinks about it. “So, we have to play the long game, huh.”

“So long as you’re comfortable with that arrangement.”

Ryousuke has come to his own conclusions through the party. 

At first, he had wondered how he was going to make it though the evening without arresting someone for making an off-colour joke, or for kicking someone for insinuating something. Then, as the night had progressed, he had wondered what building he might jump off should someone realise that he had actual, genuine possibly budding feelings of a romantic nature for the mayor he was supposed to be dating. Then, as the night had been coming to a close and he had witnessed the willful ignorance of those around him, he had sunken into a pit. 

Because part of him had hoped that it was the adrenalin of the situation that had heightened his feelings for this man, this attractive, successful, kind-hearted man. That the only reason he was feeling so tongue-tied and his heart fluttered was because it was all so exciting to be duplicitous. 

Only, when you’re at a party where nobody could give a damn about you or your feelings but your heart still flutters when a certain person glances at you, there’s something that’s really hard to deny. 

And so, being a detective, Ryousuke’s only next logical step had been to decide to play the long game. To really investigate these feelings. Of course nothing could, or would happen at a party, but were they to play being lovers over the next few months, perhaps even stretching towards a year, he might be able to distinguish between romantic feelings and his misreading _new_ feelings. Feelings like gratitude and warmth that could, for all he knew, be completely platonic. 

So that was his plan. To play along, to decide whether he had fallen in love. 

-

Ryousuke’s phone rings just as he’s about to get onto the train after work. It’s his personal phone, so there’s only one person it can be. He derails just before he gets to the station, standing in a quieter alley away from the road. 

“Saito-san? Please, is this a good time for you?”

Tokuda’s voice sounds thin and tired, something Ryousuke hasn’t heard from the man in the last 7 months, even at his most tired. 

“Yes.”

“You are more than welcome to say no, but - this case I am on, the jury still has yet to come out and I doubt whether I’ll be able to make it over to Kosue’s school on time and - well - I’ve sort of registered you as her Uncle at the school and -”

“You want me to pick her up?”

“Yes? Yes. Yes, if that works for you - I really shouldn’t be longer than a couple of hours but otherwise I shall have to leave her there and she really cannot be left in school after hours and typically I would call Ristuko, but-”

“Text me the address,” Ryousuke says, and hangs up so he doesn’t have to hear Tokuda’s wallowing thank-yous and mournful ‘only a couple of hours I swear!’

Ryousuke’s phone pings a moment later with the address. It’s near Tokuda’s house, but he supposes the girl doesn’t have a house key on her, so he formulates a plan on his way to the nursery. 

‘Uncle’, huh. 

-

The woman at the school is definitely concerned that a police detective has arrived at the place for Kosue, but once she checks the register and sees that he is listed as the girl’s uncle, she starts to give Ryousuke a sort of… grin. 

“So you’re uncle Ryou, huh!”

“I… I suppose.” 

The woman sends one of her colleagues off to collect Kosue. “She talks about you all the time, about the trips you three go on. She has marvelled many a child with her stories of your heroics.”

“Heroics?”

“How you’re a superhero who takes down baddies and how you don’t even need superpowers to do so.”

“Oh. Oh, I don’t — I don’t tell her any details about my cases, should that worry you-”

“Ha, no, nothing like that, I just think it’s sweet. The girl was very quiet when she first arrived; devoted to her father, of course, but otherwise refused to communicate. I think it’s nice that Mayor Tokuda has a… friend to open up to.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, children learn by example. Kosue was such a quiet girl because her father, bless him, was a bit of a hermit. Kind and polite, but never at social gatherings. He’s really been trying, recently, and so now Kosue’s come into her own. I think we all have you to thank for that.”

“What? Me? No-”

Ryousuke’s objections are cut off as Kosue barrels into his legs, hugging tight. “Teacher! This is uncle Ryou! Why are you here, uncle Ryou? This is my school!”

“I’m here to pick you up, Kosue. Your father was caught up at work.”

“So I get to have a sleepover at your house!?”

“Er, maybe, we’ll see how late Jun-san is needed at court.”

Ryousuke can see the effect ‘Jun-san’ has had on this woman, who looks delighted that her assumptions must be correct. Well, he supposes he’s glad that this is the reaction the revelation gets from Kosue’s teachers. 

“Are you ready to leave, Kosue?”

Kosue nods, still clinging to Ryousuke’s leg. He tries to walk, but it’s made significantly harder and she begins to giggle as he tries to disengage her, but she won’t. “I can’t walk like this,” he tells her frankly.

She just giggles more, so he reaches down and picks her up, to her delight. Now that she’s up, he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do with her. He tries to set her down, but she squirms so that it would be unsafe to let go, so he lifts her to his chest and holds her there. “Like this?” he asks, really unsure what’s happening. She squirms again like that then, climbs like a monkey until she’s sat on his shoulders. “Are you done?”

“Forward!” she exclaims, gripping tight on his shoulders. 

“Okay.” Ryousuke turns to the teacher and bows to her, a slight movement to avoid sending Kosue plummeting off of his shoulders, and she returns the gesture with a much deeper, much more amused bow of her own. 

“Are you hungry?” he asks once he’s out of the school gates.

“Mmm, kind of!”

‘Kind of’ was the sort of reply Ryousuke hated; it smacked of weak wills and indecision… but on this girl, he found that he couldn’t be angry with her. “Would you like to go to a cafe?”

“Cafe cafe!!” Kosue bounced slightly, gripping onto Ryousuke’s hair like she could direct him by pulling. “I want to go to see the cats!”

“Cats?”

“Cats, cats!” This time she really does pull, and Ryousuke resigns himself to following her directions. He wonders for a good ten minutes what his life is like, sent on a wild goose chase by this small child, his scalp pulled raw and certainly missing some hair he probably can’t afford to be losing, until he is directed to a shop front in an arcade market. The front windows are covered in posters and photographs of cats, huge signs advertising the cafe. 

“Momo-pyon’s cat cafe?” he reads, and Kosue repeats, excitement brimming in her voice. “Momo-pyon’s cat cafe!!”

“Right. Are you allergic to cats?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!”

Ryousuke sighs. He takes out his phone, snaps a photo of the cafe and sends it to Tokuda with a ‘?’. Then, a moment later he realises that the man’s in court and won’t have his phone on him, so he pins the address in the chat and adds a ‘we’ll be here for a couple of hours. Will update you when we leave.’

Ryousuke has to remove the girl from his shoulders to enter the shop, and she immediately grabs his hand, dragging him in. It’s slightly before the after-work rush so the cafe is empty of all but a couple of obvious freelancers and schoolkids, meaning Kosue gets free reign to choose where they sit. She opts for a place with a good view of the whole room, a tactical advantage for scoping out the cats while choosing from the food menu.

The waitress informs Ryousuke that they must both order one food and one drink item, so Ryousuke orders a black coffee and what looks to be the smallest, simplest dish on the menu: a slice of apple tart for himself. Kosue gapes at him and asks “Can I really have anything?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Her eyes glitter as she turns to the waitress and says “Please, big sister, may I have this and this?”

Ryousuke doesn’t understand the slightly concerned look in the waitress’s eye until she brings out the monstrosities Kosue has chosen. Her drink item is a bright green melon soda float with three scoops of icecream crafted to have wafer cat ears and chocolate cat faces, and her food item is a dessert sundae in every colour of the rainbow. It has every kind of candy sticking out of it, from pocky sticks to sprinkles, and it’s about as big as Kosue’s arm. 

_Sugar_ , Ryousuke realises, far too late. He should have set a sugar limit. He is going to be responsible for a drugged-up seven year old for an unknown amount of time, and he has just allowed her her wait in sugar. 

Ryousuke cautiously sips his coffee as he watches the girl murder the sundae, leaving her face, hands and clothes covered in chocolate syrup and melted icecream. She obviously has the good sense not to immediately finish her soda float quite yet, her giddy eyes refocusing on the cats around her. 

The waitress has left a wad of paper napkins and wet wipes beside Ryousuke, and so he begins the mammoth task of wiping the girl down before she is allowed to scamper off to play with the cats. He cleans each of her small fingers and gives her face a good scrub until she is shiny and slightly red. Once he’s done she bounces off of her chair and goes to the cat tower on the other side of the room and, despite the sugar, plays with the animals while respecting their boundaries and exuding patience. More than can be said for many of the adults in the place. 

They spend two and a half hours (and a pretty penny) there, before even Kosue decides that they’ve had enough. It’s still thankfully light out, and Ryousuke remembers spotting a park on the way here, so he directs them there and allows the girl to run off all the energy she’s got packed into her. He watches her make some new friends on the climbing frame, the five of them creating some new game Ryousuke cannot even begin to fathom, and the sun is just going down when he senses a familiar person sit next to him on the bench. 

Tokuda looks tired and displeased, so Ryousuke can guess how the case went. It seemed like even the mayor-lawyer could not win one hundred percent of his cases. 

“I’m so sorry,” Tokuda says quietly, hands clenched in his lap. 

“For what?”

“For… everything.”

“Everything. Okay. I was going to thank you.”

“Thank… me?”

“Yes. I have had a very good afternoon, watching Kosue. Thank you for trusting me to look after her.”

“You have?”

“Yes, I have. I am not particularly interested in cats nor in parks, but the fresh air has been good, as well as the fresh perspective. It’s also been a welcome break from work, and has allowed me ample time to think about my cases outside of my own space. It has been a good afternoon.”

“Huh.” Tokuda slumps a little in relief. “And Kosue? She hasn’t been too much trouble?”

“Of course she has. She’s a child. She’s supposed to cause trouble. Oh, and I made the mistake of feeding her far too much sugar and she’s yet to eat a vegetable, so I suppose you might want to do that.”

Tokuda looks at him with surprise. 

“What?”

“No, it’s just… I thought… I didn’t expect you to…” Tokuda doesn’t complete any of his sentences, instead closes the distance between them on the bench a little, until his knee can touch Ryousuke’s. “I suppose I know who to call when I need a babysitter next time.”

“Oh God, I wouldn’t rely on me, I’m fairly certain I could never get the girl to obey a single one of my commands. I wouldn’t even know where to start with bed time or bath time, or, you know, general child-rearing in general.”

“So we should practise. I can teach you. When you come over. If you’d like.” 

“I would just make the whole process more arduous on you, Tokuda-san.”

“Not at all. I would appreciate a second pair of hands. Being a single father is… hard.”

Tokuda isn’t looking at him any more, but his warm leg is still pressed against Ryousuke’s. 

Ryousuke has to fight, very hard, to push down a swarm of questions. Does Tokuda mean more than he is saying? Does he not? Is there the possibility that he, too, feels...

“Apple pie,” Ryousukek says, his brain diverting its energy away from panic into something tangible. 

“I’m sorry?”

“The apple pie they served at the cafe. They use your apples.”

“Oh! Really?”

“They tasted like your apples. I could tell. Not too sweet, slightly tart, beautiful red skin. They were yours.”

“I could check the sale list if you’d like…” 

“No need. I know.” 

Tokuda is looking at Ryousuke again with an expression that makes him feel like he can’t breathe. The sun setting is casting the man in a soft, orange hue, smoothing out the worry and the trauma from the case, setting him as a man free of worry, full of… love.

Ryousuke has to look away before he does something magnificently stupid, and is incredibly relieved when Kosue scampers over, her new friends all making their own ways home. 

“Papa! Papa, uncle Ryou took me to Momo-pyon’s and he let me have both the sundae _and_ the float and I played with Kuro and Maru and Tama and Tora and Sora and today even baby Happa-chan played with me!”

“Wow! Sounds like fun!”

“And then Kuro and Tama ate a snack from my hand and Tora licked me and I got to use the catnip toy on Maru and…” 

Ryousuke can’t quite find a time to interject in Kosue’s story, so he ends up following the pair home. If either of them find it weird, neither of them say, and Ryousuke ends up finding himself sat in his usual seat at the table as Tokuda begins re-heating some rice and vegetables from last night’s meal, Kosue helping to set the table. Ryousuke nods when Tokuda holds up a bottle of sake they’ve not quite finished yet, and Tokuda warms some water to heat the sake up with. 

They quietly cheers over Tokuda’s loss and finish the leftover food, still listening to Kosue recount her day; a seemingly endless parade of stories from school, from the park, from the cafe, until she yawns just too many times in one sentence and begins to curl herself up against Ryousuke’s side. 

“I guess your lessons start today, Ryousuke-san.”

Ryousuke is amazed that he does not feel that flare of panic at the statement, but there’s something about a dozing child against his side that settles him. He carefully scoops the girl up and follows Tokuda to their second floor, as-of-yet unseen territory for Ryousuke. He deposits the girl in her bed, then waits in the room as Tokuda goes to get the girl’s toothbrush. 

The room is decorated as he’s seen many a child-victim’s before. Posters from cartoons, soft toys scattered on surfaces, drawing tacked to the walls… except, pride of place is the elephant toy he recognises, instantly taken into the girl’s arms and looking far worse for wear than the last time he’d seen it. Above her bed is a drawing, evidently her own. A small child with a man on either side. ‘Papa’ to her left and ‘Uncle Ryou’ to her right. 

There are a couple of other knick-knacks dotted around that he recognises, flyers from attractions they’ve visited together, a cup from the aquarium they went to last month, a string of fairy lights his neighbour had been looking to sell and Ryousuke had bought, on the off-chance Kosue might like them.

As he looked around the room, his affect on the girl was undeniable. He was solidly part of her world, now. Just seven months had embedded him like this on her walls. 

Tokuda comes back with a mug and a toothbrush and hands it to Ryousuke. The girl isn’t quite asleep yet, so he sits beside her on the bed and gently brushes her teeth, encouraging her to spit into the mug once she’s done. 

Once she’s settled back down, Tokuda changes her into her pyjamas and tucks her in, and then the pair softly make their way back downstairs again. 

“See?” Jun says, washing the toothbrush in the kitchen sink, “Simple, right?”

“Yeah.” Ryousuke brings the empty dishes into the kitchen and, once Jun is done, begins to wash up, Jun drying beside him. 

“Ryousuke-san, I wanted to say,” Jun says after a period of quiet. “I do genuinely appreciate you being here.”

“Ah, no, I’m the one eating your food and drinking your sake, Tokuda-san.”

“No, I mean… Kosue really likes you being here. Loves you, really. Won’t stop talking about you when you’re not here, always planning what she’s going to tell you when you’re next over.”

“That’s very… flattering. Perhaps she needs more friends?”

“And, I like you being here too.”

“Because you have someone to do the washing up?”

“No, Ryousuke, because I like you being here.”

Ryousuke continues to wash, not knowing how else to process what’s happening. It sounds like this is where the rejection comes. “But?”

“‘But’? No ‘but’. I like you being here. I… Ah, I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

“You could never, Tokuda-san.”

“I fear that… I fear that I would be in a very major breach of contract should things… continue as they are.”

Ryousuke frowns and, without any more dishes, has nowhere to redirect his attention, so instead he turns to look at Tokuda. “Have you… developed a partnership with someone else?”

“No! No, nothing of the sort, I-” Tokuda takes a deep breath. “In the spirit of honesty, I will tell you, Ryousuke-san, but please know that I never meant to abuse your trust this way, and that this was honestly not my intention, and that if you need space from me after today, that is perfectly fine-”

“Just tell me, Tokuda-san.” 

“Yes. Yes, right.” Jun puts the dishcloth down, and turns to Ryousuke. “I seem to have developed feelings towards you, Ryousuke-san. Romantic ones. And I know, that was never the intention of this partnership, we were only meant to enact a rouse, and I did not intend to-”

“I think the feelings are mutual.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I think I, too, reciprocate those feelings.” Ryousuke clears his throat, hating how he’s slipped into legal jargon to match Jun. “I think that I have, er, fallen for you. As it were.”

Tokuda gapes, and there is the briefest of moments where Ryousuke wonders whether he could have completely misinterpreted Jun’s words. Had the man actually been talking about platonic feelings, of feelings of hatred, of-

Jun looks like he’s barely containing the smile on his face. He leans forward, as Ryousuke is accustomed to with his ‘practise cheek kisses’, and places a kiss on the corner of Ryousuke’s lips instead. Just a soft touch, and yet Ryousuke feels like maybe the entire world has changed. 

He can tell that Jun is about to pull back and start talking; either to apologise or to monologue, and Ryousuke, fond as he is for this man, does not want that right now. What he wants is for this to continue. He closes his eyes and returns the kiss. Jun seems to get the picture, bringing his hands to Ryousuke’s cheeks to steady them. 

They get the hang of it, after a few minutes, and that, for some reason, sets Jun off giggling.

“What?” 

“I’m happy!” 

“There are other ways to be happy,” Ryousuke says, though he can’t quite restain his own smile, and for the opportunity to pull back and just look at Jun, unrestrained. “You sound like a naughty schoolboy caught doing something he shouldn’t at the back of the class.” 

“Should I not be happy that the person that I like likes me back?”

“Didn’t say that.” 

Jun takes both of Ryousuke’s hands in his and kisses them, too. “Hah! I wanted to do that when you came to my office, but I was too much of a coward. Next time you come visit, I’m going to do it then, too.” 

“What happened to ‘whatever you’re comfortable with’?” 

“Are you uncomfortable with it?”

Ryousuke thinks about it. “Not really.” 

“And are you uncomfortable with the thought of me kissing you again, Detective Saito?”

“No.” Ryousuke puts a hand on Jun’s chest. “But perhaps not in the kitchen, Jun. I’m old, I don’t want to be standing.” 

Jun laughs at this, acquiescing with a pat on Ryousuke’s hand.

-

“And then you spent the night in the mayor’s room,” bastard officer Tanaka says, as if he’s summing up the story Ryousuke has just told him. 

“At his house. On his spare futon. In the living room.”

“Uhuh,” Tanaka says, evidently not believing him. 

“Because it was late and we had both drunk sake.”

“Taxis exist.”

“They also cost a lot of money, Officer Tanaka, and I do not get paid all that more than you do.” 

“So now you’re doing the walk of shame in yesterday’s clothes.” Tanaka fakes a shiver. “So scandalous. Just wait until this gets around the station.”

“Okay.” 

“What do you mean, ‘okay’?” 

“Okay. Tell everyone. I don’t particularly mind. That was the object of this exercise to begin with. And I’ll know who started the rumours, so will know who to blame when they become grossly exaggerated and dishonest.” 

Tanaka gives him a squint, then says “You’re no fun anymore.” 

“I’m glad to hear it.” 

“You have a hickey on your neck.”

Ryousuke doesn’t blink. “No, I don’t.” 

They stare it out for a good long moment, but Tanaka breaks first. “Fine. I will see it the second you trip up though, Detective Saito. You tell your mayor husband that. I’m watching.” 

“Voyeurism is a crime, officer Tanaka.”

Tanaka flips him off and goes back to work, and Ryousuke feels a deep sense of success. Finally a way to get the bastard off his back. 

He adjusts his scarf, thanking every god that it is soundly winter, that the office heater is never working and that nobody looks at him twice for wearing it inside. He also sends a small curse in Jun’s direction for leaving evidence quite so on show. 

If he was a vengeful man, he would get the man back later, but… but no. He’s trying to leave vengeance behind him, no matter how small the ‘slight’. 

Plus, part of him likes it. To have a secret like this. Not a secret about something big, or traumatic, or bad. A good secret. A nice secret. A secret that feels more like a present. 

He stops before he can put his fingers against the mark on his neck, knowing better than to develop a tell while still under Tanaka’s observation, and instead pretends like he can just feel it there. 

He smiles to himself, then gets to work. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> @bazemayonnaise on tumblr


End file.
